Several members of my mother's family were prominent in one way or another. One
of my aunts, who married a Colonel Hahn, achieved some fame as a writer. Her older
daughter was the celebrated theosophist known under the name of Madame Blavatski. The
personality and career of my cousin Yelena Petrovna Blavatski deserves to be treated at
some length.

As I was many years her junior, I could not have any recollections of Yelena in her
youth. From the stories in our family I gather that when Mrs. Hahn, her mother, died, she
and her sister came to live with my grandfather at Tiflis. At an early age, such is the
family tradition, Yelena married a certain Blavatski, Vice-Governor of the province of
Erivan, and settled in the city of the same name, but soon abandoned her husband and came
back to her grandfather. When she appeared in his spacious mansion he immediately decided
to send away the troublesome young person at the earliest possible moment to her father,
who was an artillery colonel stationed in the vicinity of St. Petersburg. As there were at
that time no railways within the territory of the Caucasus, the problem was not without
its difficulties. It was solved in this wise. Two women and as many men, including
grandfather's trusty steward, were selected from the large staff of domestic serfs, and
under this convoy the future theosophic celebrity proceeded in the direction of Poti,
enthroned in a capacious four-in-hand. From Poti it was planned to ship the fugitive by
sea to some port connected by rail with the interior of Russia. When the company arrived
in Poti, several steamers, including an English craft, lay in the harbour. Young Mme.
Blavatski, so the story runs, immediately struck up an acquaintance with the captain of an
English vessel. To make a long story short, one fine morning the convoy discovered to
their horror that their mistress and charge had vanished into the air. Stowed away in an
English ship, she was on her way to Constantinople.

The subsequent developments of her amazing career appear as follows: At
Constantinople she entered a circus as an equestrienne, and it was there that Mitrovich,
one of the most celebrated opera bassos of the time, fell in love with her. She gave up
the circus and accompanied the singer to one of the European capitals where he was engaged
to sing. Shortly afterwards, grandfather was the recipient of letters from the singer
Mitrovich, who asserted that he had been married to Yelena and styled himself
"grandson." The famous basso apparently was not disconcerted by the fact that
she had not been properly divorced from her legal husband, the Vice-Governor of Erivan.
Several years later a new "grandson" accrued to my grandparents. A certain
Englishman from London informed them in a letter bearing an American stamp that he had
married Madame Blavatski, who had gone with him on a business trip to the United States.
Next she reappears in Europe and becomes the right hand of the celebrated medium of the
sixties, Hume. Then her family caught two more glimpses of her dazzling career. They
learned from the papers that she gave pianoforte concerts in London and Paris and
afterwards became the manager of the royal choir, maintained by King Milan of Serbia.

In the meantime some ten years had passed. Grown tired, perhaps, of her adventures, the
strayed sheep decided to return to the fold. She succeeded, at the end of that period, in
getting grandfather's permission to return to Tiflis. She promised to mend her ways and
even go back to her legitimate husband. It was during that visit of hers that I saw her
first. At that time she was but a ruin of her former self. Her face, apparently once of
great beauty, bore all the traces of a tempestuous and passionate life, and her form was
marred by an early obesity. Beside, she paid but scant attention to her appearance and
preferred loose morning dresses to more elaborate apparel. But her eyes were
extraordinary. She had enormous azure coloured eyes, and when she spoke with animation,
they sparkled in a fashion which is altogether indescribable. Never in my life have I seen
anything like that pair of eyes.

It was this apparently unattractive woman that turned the heads of a great many society
people at Tiflis. She did it by means of spiritualistic seances, which she conducted in
our house. Every evening, I remember, the Tiflis society folks would foregather in our
house around Yelena Petrovna. Among the guests were Count Vorontzov-Dashkov, the two
Counts Orlov-Davydov, and other representatives of the jeunesse doree, which at
that time was flocking to the Caucasus from the two capitals in quest of pleasure and
adventure. The seance would last the whole evening and oftentimes the whole night. My
cousin did not confine the demonstrations of her powers to table rapping, evocation of
spirits, and similar mediumistic hocus-pocus. On one occasion she caused a closed piano in
an adjacent room to emit sounds as if invisible hands were playing upon it. This was done
in my presence, at the instance of one of the guests. Although a young boy, my attitude
towards these performances was decidedly critical, and I looked on them as mere
sleight-of-hand tricks. I should like to add that these seances were kept secret from my
grandparents and that my father, too, entertained a negative attitude towards the whole
business. It was Hume, I believe, to whom Madame Blavatski owed her occult knowledge.

Mme. Blavatski made her peace with her husband and went as far as establishing a home
at Tiflis, but it was not given her to walk the path of righteousness for any length. One
fine morning she was accosted in the street by Mitrovich. The famous basso was now
declining, artistically and otherwise. After a brilliant career in Europe, he was forced
to accept an engagement at the Italian Opera of Tiflis. The singer apparently had no
doubts as to his rights to my cousin, and did not hesitate to assert his claims. As a
result of the scandal, Mme. Blavatski vanished from Tiflis and the basso with her. The
couple went to Kiev, where under the guidance of his "wife" Mitrovich, who by
this time was approaching sixty, learned how to sing in Russian and appeared with success
in such Russian operas as "Life for the Czar," "Rusalka," etc. The
office of Governor-General of Kiev was held at that time by Prince Dundukov-Korsakov. The
Prince, who at one time served in the Caucasus, had known Yelena Petrovna in her maiden
days. I am not in the position to say what was the nature of their relationship, but one
fine morning the Kievans discovered a leaflet pasted on the doors and telegraph posts
which contained a number of poems very disagreeable for the Governor-General. The author
of this poetic outburst was no other person than Mme. Blavatski herself, and as the fact
was patent, the couple had to clear out.

She was heard of next from Odessa, where she emerged in the company of her faithful
basso. At that time our entire family was settled in that city (my grandparents and father
had died at Tiflis), and my brother and I attended the university there. The extraordinary
couple must have found themselves in great straits. It was then that my versatile cousin
opened in succession an ink factory and retail shop and a store of artificial flowers. In
those days she often came to see my mother, and I visited her store several times, so that
I had the opportunity of getting better acquainted with her. I was especially impressed by
the extraordinary facility with which she acquired skill and knowledge of the most varied
description. Her abilities in this respect verged on the uncanny. A self-taught
musician, she was able to give pianoforte concerts in London and Paris, and although
entirely ignorant of the theory of music, she conducted a large orchestra. Consider
also that although she never seriously studied any foreign languages, she spoke several of
them with perfect ease. I was also struck by her mastery of the technique of verse. She
could write pages of smoothly flowing verse without the slightest effort, and she could
compose essays in prose on every conceivable subject. Besides she possessed the gift of
hypnotizing both her hearer and herself into believing the wildest inventions of her
fantasy. She had, no doubt, a literary talent. The Moscow editor, Katkov, famous in the
annals of Russian journalism, spoke to me in the highest terms of praise about her
literary gifts, as evidenced in the tales entitled "From the Jungles of
Hindustan," which she contributed to his magazine, The Russian Messenger (Russki
Vyestnik).

Mme. Blavatski's ventures in the field of commerce proved, of course, dismal failures.
It was then that Mitrovich accepted an engagement to sing at the Italian Opera at Cairo
and the couple set out for Egypt. By that time they presented a rather sorry sight, he a
toothless lion, perennially at the feet of his mistress, an aged lady, stout and slovenly.
Off the African coast their ship was wrecked and all the passengers found themselves in
the waves. Mitrovich saved his mistress, but was drowned himself. Mme. Blavatski entered
Cairo in a wet skirt and without a penny to her name. How she extricated herself from that
situation, I do not know, but she was next discovered in England, where she founded a
Theosophic Society. To strengthen the foundations of the new cult, she travelled to India,
where she studied the occult science of the Hindus. Upon her return from India she became
the centre of a large group of devotees of the theosophic doctrine and settled in Paris as
the acknowledged head of the theosophists. Shortly afterwards she fell ill and died. The
teachings of theosophy, however, are still thriving.

Let him who still doubts the non-material origin and the independent existence of the
soul in man consider the personality of Mme. Blavatski. During her earthly
existence, she housed a spirit which was, no doubt, independent of physical or
physiological being. As to the particular realm of the invisible world from which
that spirit emerged, there may be some doubt whether it was Inferno, Purgatory or
Paradise. I cannot help feeling that there was something demoniac in that
extraordinary woman.